Friday, August 13, 2010

VisualBee is a plug-in for Microsoft PowerPoint that takes the plain out of designing a presentation by automatically selecting a suitable template and layout for you, leaving you to focus on the content. VisualBee analyzes the presentation text and structure and automatically builds a professionally designed presentation with the right set of images, layout and background.

The user starts with a blank template and enters the slide’s content. After the user is done with the typing, he (or she) clicks on the Enhance Presentation button on Microsoft PowerPoint Ribbon. This causes VisualBee to connect to the server and offer the user a choice of style or “moods” - classic, formal, colorful, artistic or extreme. Each mood provide a distinct new design – background, types of images, color combinations, and styles.

The user chooses a mood and clicks OK to begin the analysis and enhancement process. This takes some time depending on the number of slides you have in your presentation and their textual content. When the analysis is over, you will be presented with a fairly decent and reasonably good looking template.

If you are not satisfied with its look, you can click on ‘Change layout’ or start again by choosing a different mood. You can also change the images of the template by clicking the ‘Change image’ link. This will open an image browser with an assortment of images to choose from. You can also search for a specific image by keyword.

After you apply a template, you will asked to save the presentation, wherein the newly saved presentation will open in another PowerPoint window. The original presentation you created on the blank template remains untouched, which is a good thing to have, in case you decide to start all over again.

And of course, the VisualBee created template is fully editable.

VisualBee does have a few minor annoyances. Here is what I didn’t like about the program:

VisualBee requires an Internet connection to work. You also require to register before you can start using the tool.